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Wildlife management helps protect critters in the oilpatch

Kyle Knopff is a wildlife biologist with Golder Associates, and is photographed in The Bow River Valley in Calgary on April 10, 2012.

Photograph by: Christina Ryan
, For Postmedia News

An avid cross-country ski racer from childhood, Kyle Knopff has always loved the great outdoors. But it was an invitation at age 12 to help catch and band hawks for research that got him excited about wildlife biology.

After high school, Knopff attended the University of Calgary where he gained a bachelor of science degree in physical anthropology. He earned his masters in primate ecology from the same institution — his thesis took him to Belize to study black howler monkeys — before heading into a PhD program at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He took a summer internship and volunteered on a number of projects to gain extra experience.

"I'd always been an outdoorsy kind of guy and it just kept drawing me into ecological studies," he says.

Today Knopff is a full-time wildlife biologist with Golder Associates Ltd., an international consulting company. He provides wildlife-specific counsel to companies in Canada and around the globe involved in resource extraction projects, including oil and gas developments, site remediation and transportation infrastructure, among others.

"Our world continues to develop and I want to help achieve that in the most environmentally sound way possible," he says. "My job allows me to do that by helping organizations to understand the impact of a project on the surrounding wildlife and finding ways for them to make sustainable decisions going forward."

Mark Boyce, professor of biology at the University of Alberta, says there are numerous job opportunities for graduates of the university's ecology program.

"Consulting offers a substantial place of employment, which in Alberta is driven by the oil and gas sector. Work often involves dealing with environmental compliance and wildlife monitoring programs," he says.

Wildlife programs also exist in every province and territory in Canada and every state in the U.S. Provincial and state fish and wildlife branches hire a large number of graduates, Boyce says. Many of his former students now working in government spend a lot of time reviewing oil and gas lease proposals.

In the natural resource management area, opportunities exist for engineers, technologists and environmental scientists, including biologists, chemists and geographers. Much of this work is driven by government regulation and shareholder or consumer demand for corporate social responsibility. Pre-work on pipeline development projects in the sector will also have a significant impact on environment-related employment opportunities, Kerford adds.

Boyce and Kerford say high school counsellors often underestimate the opportunities that exist in wildlife management and tend to steer students in other directions. They don't realize the breadth and number of jobs available in the field and the exciting lifestyle it entails. When working in the oil and gas sector to find solutions that protect waterfowl, nesting birds or migrating caribou, wildlife specialists play an important role in helping organizations to minimize their impact on the environment.

To be a good wildlife specialist, Kerford says, a collaborative nature is critical. He also cites technical competence, communications skills, accountability, leadership and objectivity as key.

"It takes a genuine passion for wildlife and a love of field work," Boyce adds. "Often the pay at the beginner level is not great, but your job may take you to some remote and exciting places."

Knopff's career advice is to work on a variety of projects as a young biologist. "There are lots of opportunities for summer internships where you can conduct radio telemetry, data collection and analysis. And gain some expertise in geographical information systems, an emerging tool for oil and gas development."

Knopff relishes his time in the field but quips, "If you don't like sitting in a swamp at two in the morning, being eaten by mosquitoes while listening for frogs and toads, this might not be the job for you."

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